A/N: Happy 4th of July Americans! Here's a nice solid dose of action for you!
Chapter Seven
Shepard stepped out of the aircar and into the merc staging area. Their driver wasn't particularly helpful in terms of providing any further information; the only thing he had said was that they should speak to someone named Cathka. She tilted her head from side to side, stretching the muscles in her neck, and headed up the stairs.
"So, what's the plan, Shepard?" Revan asked from behind her.
She ignored the insinuation that she might not have one. "They won't expect an attack from within the ranks of the cannon fodder. We get halfway across that bridge and start shooting at the other mercs. Archangel will see we're friendly and will hopefully at least give us a chance to explain ourselves before killing us."
"'Hopefully'?" Revan repeated dubiously. Shepard gave her a significant look, and realisation quickly dawned. "Ah. I can tell you if Archangel is intending to attack us."
"If you wouldn't mind," Shepard said breezily, and Revan grinned. Huh. Maybe she wasn't such an enigma after all.
They made their way through the corridors of the base until they finally came across a batarian mechanic bent over the access panel of a gunship. "Cathka?" Shepard asked the mercenaries standing around nearby. One of them flicked a thumb toward the mechanic before wandering away with his companions.
As Cathka straightened and took his time removing his glare-shield, she eyed the gunship. If it needed the attention of a mechanic, she would prefer it to stay that way. The idea of having its guns turned on her team was less than appealing. "Cathka," she greeted him. "We were told to speak to you when we arrived."
He gave them all an evaluating onceover. "Finally, someone who looks like they can handle themselves." His uppermost set of eyes narrowed in an almost human expression of suspicion. "You and your team don't seem like the types to take on a suicide mission, though, even if the pay is good."
Ironic word choice. "We found ourselves in a bit of trouble. We need to get off Omega quickly. It costs a fortune to arrange transport off-station," she shrugged, lying smoothly.
He nodded in understanding, pulling a datapad out of one his many pockets. "So I hear." He hit a couple of buttons then stowed the pad again. "All right, you're logged in. Head on over to the barricade there. They'll be calling for the push any second now. Oh—and take my advice, one professional to another. Hang back a bit before you go."
Shepard smiled wryly. "Will do." She watched as Cathka turned back to the gunship, pulling the glare-shield over his eyes… and leaving an electric capacity tester lying on the bench beside him.
She eyed the tester. That thing could deliver over a thousand volts to a circuit in order to test its functionality. It could also do significant damage to an organic being, should it be accidentally left powered on where someone wearing a glare-shield would blindly reach for it.
Wrex would have done it without a second thought, but she was never as pragmatic as he had been. Was she now? Now that she had died and been brought back to life? Was she the same person now as she was then?
Where was Wrex now? She stifled a sudden and unexpected pang of loneliness. Seeing Tali on Freedom's Progress had been such a huge relief that it had hurt all the more when she hadn't joined them. The possibility that Tali might not be able to come with her hadn't even crossed her mind; the two of them had been such good friends and had worked so well together in the fight against Saren. But when she thought about it, it made perfect sense. Although it had felt like nothing more than falling asleep and waking up again for Shepard herself, it had been two years for her crew. Of course they had all moved on.
She hadn't, though. She was still the same person she was before. At least, she hoped so.
Grimacing, Shepard turned away, and found Revan watching her, the look in her eyes so intense it was startling. The switch from mild amiability to icy coldness was sharp and jarring. "It would be easier, yes," Revan said quietly, her tone sending prickles up Shepard's spine. "But the dark side is always easier. If there is another way, do not give in to it."
"The dark side? What-?" Shepard frowned, confused, then angry when she realised what must have happened. "Get out of my head!" she whispered furiously.
The smaller woman opened her mouth to respond in kind, but immediately snapped it shut. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and when she exhaled, she was calm once more. Shepard blinked, thrown again by the sudden change, but Revan ignored her. "Cathka," she called in a tone that was suddenly pleasant and amiable.
The mechanic looked back over his shoulder and frowned. "What is it? I gave you your orders already."
"I know," Revan agreed. "But I have a message for you as well." Her tone became silky smooth, deceptively nonchalant, as she continued. "This is not the career for you. You're wasted here."
Shepard frowned, confused. Cathka, on the other hand, just nodded slowly in agreement. "Yeah, I am. I've got a degree in subspace engineering from the University of Khar'Shan."
"You should put that degree to better use. There are many businesses out there that would love to hire you."
"There are many businesses out there that would love to hire me!" Cathka agreed, growing more enthusiastic.
"You shouldn't waste another moment of your time here. Go and start applying!"
"I shouldn't waste another moment of my time here. I'll go and start applying," Cathka told Revan firmly, nodding in agreement.
To Shepard's surprise, without another word, Cathka walked away, leaving the gunship in pieces behind him. She watched him go, anger draining away. "What was that?" she demanded.
"Something I like to call a little Jedi mind trick," Revan explained, tone now back to normal.
Miranda had been watching the whole thing too. "That could really come in handy," she commented, clearly impressed.
"It's not foolproof," Revan warned. "It only works on weak or distracted minds. And I can only make suggestions based on something the target might already be open to doing, or believing. Cathka has been wanting to get out of this particular job for a while."
"I don't blame him, if he has a degree from Khar'Shan," Miranda commented, oblivious to Shepard's continuing inner turmoil. "It's not the best university in the galaxy but its graduates should be able to do a lot better than Omega."
"Come on, let's get moving," Shepard interjected briskly, noting the mercs at the nearby barricade had begun checking weapons and armour. Miranda was right – that little "trick" could be very useful, but the idea of Revan being able to get into someone's head and twist their thoughts chilled her to the bone. It was yet another thing they needed to discuss, but now wasn't the time. "We can talk about this later. Miranda, on my left." A shout went up amongst the gathered mercs, and Shepard raised her voice to be heard. "Revan, my right."
The mercenaries charged, yelling battle cries and firing their rifles in the vague direction of the balcony ahead as they barrelled across the bridge. She hung back for a few seconds, long enough to give them a head start but not long enough for the Blue Suns and Eclipse to get suspicious. Then she headed for the barricade, drawing on the biotic power centred in her implant and directing it outwards into a barrier as she walked. A shimmering violet field spread quickly over her armour. Beside her, Miranda did the same, while Revan touched her wrist and was immediately enveloped by a vaguely crimson shield. Good – she did have protection beyond just the tunic she wore.
Shepard vaulted easily over the barricade, watching as the mercs in the first ranks were cut down one by one by Archangel. It was a long run across the bridge, and he was a very, very good shot. She bit the inside of her lip. If she had misjudged her plan, they wouldn't last long.
She followed the mercs until half way across the bridge, out of range of most of the Blue Suns and Eclipse behind them and approaching the limits of Archangel's own range, where she motioned Miranda and Revan forward. "Let's go," she said.
Shifting her shoulders back, she gathered biotic energy into and through her implant, sending it crackling done to the base of her spine. When the tingling became almost too much she released it, throwing herself across the bridge to slam into the back of an advancing merc.
He never knew what hit him. He stumbled and fell, sprawling on the ground, and she finished him off with a quick shot to the back of the head. Without pausing she turned her fire on the next merc over, scoring a headshot just as the twisting energies of a biotic warp began tearing at his limbs.
Miranda was quick on the uptake, she had to admit, and much as she didn't like the idea, they did work well together. Freedom's Progress had been an excellent demonstration of that. She scowled to herself. The Cerberus operative had probably trained herself to do so.
She flinched as a sharp beam of violet light whipped past her shoulder no more than half a metre away. It scythed through the air before neatly separating a merc's head from her shoulders, then bending around and slashing another merc from chest to opposite thigh. Revan stepped up on Shepard's right, plucking her laser sword from the air as it flew back to her hand.
Well, Shepard had wondered why Revan didn't carry a gun as well as those swords. Now she knew.
She charged a merc a couple of metres away, sending him staggering back, and gathered biotic energy into her fist as she ran after him. She punched his unprotected jaw, sending him spinning to the ground, neck broken. She whipped around, pistol raised and ready, but they were clear for the moment.
As Miranda and Revan jogged forward to join her she glanced up at Archangel. The grey visor of his blue helmet seemed to stare back for a moment, before he deliberately lifted his rifle and moved away from the perch.
"We're good," Revan said.
She smiled grimly. "Yep." As it turned out, Revan's mind-reading ability wasn't required after all. It was clear Archangel was trusting them to keep the bridge clear while he moved back into the apartment to deal with the mercs who had made it across already. Her plan was working.
Up ahead, another group of mercs hadn't noticed what had happened to their comrades and were attempting to find cover within the undercroft of the apartment. "Miranda," Shepard said shortly, indicating the left-most merc. "Revan." She pointed to the right, then as the other two raised their weapons she shifted her shoulders and charged a merc who was pressed up against a pillar, peering into the apartment. The force of her charge slammed him into the pillar, dazing him and breaking something even through his armour. As he crumpled she finished him off with a neat headshot, once again relishing the increased strength the Cerberus skin- and boneweaves had given her.
Miranda had lifted her merc off the ground and out of cover with a biotic pull and was dispatching him easily with a couple of carefully aimed bursts from her SMG. It was neat, efficient and surgical.
Revan's merc had thrown himself over a low shelf in the middle of the lower level of the apartment. As he raised his head and his weapon carefully out of cover a storage container of some kind flew across from the opposite wall and slammed into the side of his head. He fell and slid out into the open with the force of the impact, then spun and shot across the floor on his back, helpless, toward a gesturing Revan. She came forward to meet him and unceremoniously stabbed one of her laser swords through his neck.
Shepard grimaced. Brutal. Although, to be fair, what she had just done to her merc could also be considered pretty brutal. She cocked her head toward the stairs leading up to the second level. "Come on."
She jogged up the stairs, Revan and Miranda following close behind. She almost ran directly into the barrel of Archangel's assault rifle. She skidded to a stop and raised her hands. "Archangel. We're friends."
As soon as he saw her, the vigilante seemed to do a double take. He quickly lowered his rifle. "Shepard?" he demanded incredulously.
She frowned. It was a familiar voice. Suddenly details she had overlooked from a distance stood out clearly: the well-worn sniper rifle, the familiar firing stance, the decidedly turian design of the helmet… Her breath caught in her throat. It couldn't be. "Garrus?" she breathed.
He yanked his helmet off. His mandibles were stretched wide in a turian grin. "By the spirits, I thought I was seeing things when you were out on that bridge! I thought it was a ghost or a clone, or someone wearing your armour…" he trailed off, shaking his head and grasping her shoulders in a tight grip. "What are you doing here, Shepard?" he demanded. "You're supposed to be dead!"
She couldn't wipe the smile from her face as she let him pull her into an embrace. "Cerberus decided they didn't like that idea." She had been aiming for a light-hearted quip, but her voice wavered halfway through and it came out sounding like something else entirely. She ignored Revan's curious stare.
"Cerberus?" Garrus repeated, tone cooling a few degrees as he eyed her companions. "Are you a prisoner?"
"Hardly," Miranda scoffed, raising her chin. "We gave her a ship and a crew to run it. If she wanted to leave there's not much stopping her."
The look Garrus gave her spoke volumes. He knew that might not necessarily be the case.
She laid a hand on his arm. "I'm not a prisoner," she reassured him, then sighed. "I'm not precisely where I want to be, either. I'll explain later."
He nodded slowly, then glanced back over his shoulder. "We do have other pressing concerns. Come on. We need to keep an eye on the mercenaries. They'll be sending more soon."
When they were crouched beside the balcony wall with a view over the bridge, he continued. "What are you doing here, Shepard? Even if you happened to be on Omega by chance – which I would find difficult to believe – there was no way for you to know I'm Archangel and decide to come and rescue me. Not that I don't appreciate it," he drawled.
A quick smile flickered across her lips. "I'm not here by chance. I'm building a team. I'm here to recruit the vigilante Archangel. He's made quite a name for himself, you know."
Garrus chuckled. "So I hear. What do you need a team for?"
To fight the Collectors, of course… but a whisper of a chill trickled down Shepard's spine as she remembered the look Revan had given her when she explained what "Reapers" were. Someone from an entirely different galaxy had heard of them and was as worried about them as she was. She would lay money on the Collectors being related to them in some way. Kidnapping entire colonies sounded all too much like the beginnings of a harvest.
"Human colonies are being abducted, and the Council isn't doing anything about it," she explained. "The Alliance doesn't have the numbers to protect all of them. We've done some preliminary investigation, and it looks like the Collectors are to blame. I'm taking a team through the Omega Four relay to cut off the problem at its source."
He whistled, low and long. "The Omega Four relay huh?" Idly she wondered how he managed to produce a sound so similar to a human whistle with such an inflexible mouth. "No one has ever been through the Omega Four relay."
She smiled grimly. "We'll be the first." Movement caught her eye, and she borrowed the scope of Garrus' sniper rifle to zoom in on the far side of the bridge. "Incoming. Mechs." She glanced over her shoulder at Revan, and found she had moved in closer without her realising. For her benefit, she added, "Droids. Not like your HK-47, though. Just basic automatons."
They were approaching in waves, five to a row, row after row. Shepard grimaced. There were a lot of them down there. They could probably take them all out, but she suspected it might cost an injury or two. She had her missile launcher, but if someone else had managed to get that gunship working, or if they had some other form of heavy artillery somewhere, she would need those missiles…
Revan nodded, standing tall beside her, seemingly uncaring about making herself a target for any enemy snipers who happened to be watching. Arrogant, she thought, but after seeing a few of Revan's skills she wasn't convinced it was stupid. "I'll deal with them," Revan decided. She took a step toward the balcony wall, then caught herself and looked down at Shepard. "If that's all right with you, Commander."
The woman was definitely accustomed to being in command. "By yourself?" Shepard asked. "There are at least thirty of them down there, Revan. They may not be very smart, but even unshielded mechs are dangerous."
"They won't be any trouble." The statement was matter-of-fact, bereft of any ego. Revan paused and met Shepard's uncertain gaze. "If something… unforeseen occurs, I can remove myself from melee range very quickly," she reassured her.
Shepard stared at her for a moment longer, but as the balcony began to take fire from the advancing mechs, she made her decision. She nodded curtly. "Go on, then. I guess it's time for another demonstration."
In another jarring change, Revan grinned, her face lighting up with something akin to joy. Like a child who had just been told she could have as much ice cream as she wanted. She stepped lightly up onto the balcony wall and ignited both her laser swords with a deep snap-hiss.
"Woah," Shepard heard Garrus mutter at the sight of those swords. She had to agree, they did look spectacular. Despite herself, she was keen to see Revan fighting with them.
Revan took a deep breath, then leaped down off the balcony and half way across the bridge in a move similar to but decidedly more graceful than Shepard's biotic charge. She landed solidly in the midst of the first two rows of mechs. Shepard caught her breath as they scattered around her like crops in a field. She had never seen a move like that before.
Revan twisted and spun, her laser swords flashing in strobes around and over her body as she moved. She sliced through metallic arms, necks and torsos, littering the ground with parts. With a reach and pull of her arm, a pair of mechs on the outer edge cartwheeled through the group, mowing down a whole row. Her laser swords never stopped moving, and although Shepard couldn't see it clearly from her vantage point, she suspected Revan was actually deflecting gunshots with them. She never seemed to take a hit.
"Spirits," Garrus breathed. "Cerberus is hiring top talent these days."
"She's not with Cerberus," Miranda spoke up. She was standing by the wall beside the balcony, out of line of sight but still in a position to be able to see the battle below, arms folded over her chest. "We found her on the Citadel."
"She and her companions claim to be from another galaxy," Shepard explained without looking away from the display below. "We think they might be telling the truth."
The mechs had gathered around Revan by now and were converging on her, firing ceaselessly, their rudimentary combat programming trying to force their single opponent into a more defensive posture. But she was having none of it. Her laser swords flashed, and she leaped up into the air, somersaulting neatly over their heads and landing right behind the thickest concentration of mechs. She dived in from behind, swords slicing, as mechs that no longer had a clear line of sight ceased fire and moved to regain it without firing on their compatriots.
"Another galaxy?" Garrus repeated dubiously. "That doesn't seem possible."
"Giant sentient spaceships didn't seem possible a couple of years ago," she reminded him. "Revan has agreed to help us fight the Reapers in return for help getting home."
Revan reached a hand up and yanked it down, and a group of mechs flew up into the air before slamming into the ground so hard they didn't move again. "Nice," Miranda murmured to herself. Below, Revan spun, and her swords decapitated two more mechs.
Suddenly, the ground shook beneath them. Shepard caught herself on the wall. Below, on the bridge, Revan seemed unaffected, but Garrus and Miranda had both braced themselves as she did. "What was that?" she asked sharply.
Garrus swore. "The tunnels! There are tunnels leading into this place from below, they must have sent a team around the back and blasted through my barriers."
"The Blood Pack," Miranda said grimly.
Shepard grimaced. "I wondered what had happened to them." She moved back away from the wall and got to her feet, checking her pistol. "Stay here, Garrus, keep Revan covered. Miranda and I will deal with this."
She nodded to Miranda and the two of them headed down the stairs to the lower levels, and the tunnels below.
Revan spun and darted and rolled, slipping neatly through, between and around the mass of oncoming mechs. She let the Force sing through her, harmonising it with the fierce, unadulterated joy she felt when she fought mechanical opponents. Knowing they couldn't feel anything, that they weren't alive, was like being given permission to go all out without worrying about risking the corruption of the dark side or the remorse that came from killing a living being. It was exhilarating.
A mech stepped a little too close to her and she grinned as she dropped to a crouch and sliced through its midsection, shots from its blaster and those of the other mechs flying over her head for almost a full second before they adjusted. She had their reaction times down pat now; she sprang up and somersaulted, twisting in the air to land behind a group of three mechs. She brought both palms out and then together, using the Force to increase the pressure of the air around her hands and send a shockwave out before her. The mechs clattered into one another, then onto the floor in a tangled heap, while the other mechs took almost a full second to react and readjust their aim.
There were only a few left now. Stepping forward, Revan twirled a saber over her head and around, using the momentum to slice through two of the mechs' heads while she focussed on blocking blaster bolts with her other saber. This galaxy had very strange blasters, she thought to herself dimly as she fought. The 'blaster bolts' she was blocking seemed more like metal slugs. They pinged off her sabers then dropped to the ground below. If she wasn't careful, they could turn into a trip hazard.
A trip hazard. That was an interesting idea. She allowed the Force to guide the movements of her sabers while she shifted some of her attention to the tiny metal slugs littering the ground around her. With a quick breath, she used the Force to send them all skittering under the feet of the remaining four mechs.
Three of them slid and slipped, two falling over onto their backs, one to its knees. She took that one out first, stabbing the blade of a saber straight through its head, then the two on the ground with a single slash across both of their necks.
Her danger sense flared and she raised her saber, but the mech that had kept its feet had managed to recover its firing solution more quickly than she had anticipated. Pain blossomed in her left bicep. In a rush of anger she lunged forward, raising both her sabers over her head and slashing them both down across the mech's torso. It clattered to the ground in multiple pieces.
That was the last one. She let a breath out with a whoosh. Extinguishing her sabers and reattaching them to her belt, she took a look at her shoulder. Her tunic was ripped where the slug had passed through, straight into the muscle. Blood was welling out and down her arm. She winced, feeling for an exit wound, but couldn't find one.
Scowling to herself, she made sure she was clear for now and laid her palm on top of the wound. She took a deep, centring breath, trying to dispel the lingering anger. It had become much harder to heal herself since she had decided she would need the power of the dark side to defeat Malak - or rather, much harder to heal herself the Jedi way. The dark side could knit flesh, as Malak had done when they fought, but it was painful and not very pretty. She preferred to avoid it unless absolutely necessary, but it was harder to focus and achieve the calm she needed to draw on the light side of the Force now, especially on the battlefield. It took more of an effort than she liked, but she was able to calm herself just enough to draw on the healing power of the Force and stop the bleeding.
She hadn't closed her eyes, but she had diverted just enough of her attention from the battlefield for the appearance of the huge, towering mech to be a surprise. It lumbered out from behind the barricade, single red eye scanning for targets as soon as it had a clear line of fire. Mercenaries followed close behind, dressed in the yellow armour she understood represented the Eclipse company and the blue armour of the Blue Suns.
She drew her sabers in a flash as they started shooting. She ducked and spun, lightsabers whirling around her body, deflecting incoming fire. The onslaught was strong. It took all she had to keep blocking the barrage of metal slugs. Unlike blaster-fire, her sabers didn't automatically reflect any of the shots back at her attackers, which meant she was stuck in a defensive position. Luckily Shepard's friend Garrus had decided to join the fight, and he was an excellent shot. Any mercenary who got too close to her died with a high-powered round through the middle of the forehead.
They were very carefully not getting close to her, in fact, and that had nothing to do with the single sniper backing her up. She suspected they had something else in store, and she wasn't wrong. It wasn't long before the giant mech crouched back on its heels, one of its cannons pointed directly at her. She planted her feet and glared at it, using the light touch of fear mixed with the excitement of battle to augment her reflexes. She had no idea what the thing was going to fire at her, but she was looking forward to finding out—
With explosive force that rocked the mech back, a rocket shot out of the firing tube and hurtled straight for her. She crouched and raised one of her sabers directly into its path, braced with the Force to send it right back where it came from.
Instead, the rocket blew her lightsaber out of her hand, sending it flying back over her head toward the building where Garrus was watching from. She had a moment to spare for shock, before reflexes took over and she beckoned with her empty hand, calling the saber back before it could disappear over the side of the bridge. The rocket hit the side of the building, thankfully away from where Garrus was holed up.
Clearly she had underestimated the strength of this galaxy's heavy weapons.
No more playing, then. She had to get rid of the mercs, and she couldn't just reflect their blaster bolts directly back at them. Mentally she paused for a moment as an idea hit. She couldn't reflect blaster bolts the conventional way...
The mercs began to advance again and she fell back into the routine of blocking incoming fire with her lightsabers, but instead of just letting the metal rounds fall to the ground, she tried something new: as a round hit one of her sabers, she used a quick touch of the Force to redirect its energy straight back where it came from. It wasn't quite as effective as reflecting blaster bolts – it wasn't as accurate, a lot of energy was lost in the reversal, and she could only manage to deflect maybe one or two out of a barrage of ten – but these rounds had excess energy in the first place, so it worked. The few rounds she experimented with shot straight back into the mercenaries who had fired them.
When the heavy mech powered up its cannon again, she grinned.
This time she had both sabers ready, a fresh energy shield powered up, and the Force as a solid brace around her whole body. The rocket fired, and she lifted both lightsabers, crossed over, into its path. She caught it with the Force and flung it back at the mech. It hurtled back over the heads of the remaining mercenaries and detonated spectacularly. The mech exploded in a huge fireball, taking out a couple of nearby mercs as well.
She laughed with unabashed glee. That had worked even better than she had hoped, and without the giant mech looming over her, she was free to go on the offensive again. She took a couple of running steps and dived into the now decidedly nervous-looking mercs.
It wasn't long before she had finished them all off. A couple proved a little harder to take out due to what felt like extra armour, but in the end neither were a match for her lightsabers and Garrus' supporting sniper fire. When there were no mercs left standing, she extinguished her sabers and clipped them back to her belt, studying the bodies covering the bridge.
As her battle fervour faded, she felt her smile fade as well.
She had just killed a lot of people. Brutally, and quickly, and without a second thought.
Intellectually she knew that if she hadn't killed them first, they would undoubtedly have killed her, Shepard, Miranda and Garrus. It wasn't the act of killing them that she had a problem with. It was the sheer joy she had felt while doing it. Not the joy of killing, but the joy of battle. The same joy she had felt while destroying the mechs. It was addictive. She hadn't even stopped to think about the changed situation before rushing into the group of living mercs.
And that, right there, was the problem. She hadn't stopped to think.
She grimaced and turned away. Every day she found herself understanding more and more about what had originally led her to fall to the dark side, and that made her very uneasy.
Shepard, Miranda and Garrus were waiting for her on the lower level of the apartment. Suddenly, she found herself feeling a little uncomfortable. How long had they been there, watching? Garrus was hard to read, with his bony features, but she could feel he was a little shell-shocked. Shepard was leaning against a pillar, arms folded patiently over her chest, and Miranda sat primly nearby, legs crossed, examining her SMG. Outwardly nonchalant, but inwardly…
Revan felt her lip quirk in a half-smile. Miranda was impressed, but stubbornly refusing to show it. The Cerberus operative reminded her of Bastila sometimes.
Bastila, who was currently in the clutches of Darth Malak. Her smile faded, and she strode back into the apartment.
Shepard straightened to meet her, and Revan noticed her armour was scored in a couple of new places. Obviously she hadn't just been sitting around watching the show. "That was a hell of a display, Revan," she commented, then frowned, cutting off whatever she was going to say next and peering at the ripped arm of her tunic. "Looks like they got you, though. Are you all right?"
Revan glanced down at her shoulder and grimaced. The wound had reopened, and blood was trickling down toward her elbow. In her battle fervour she had forgotten about it.
Carefully she peeled the edges of her tunic away from the laceration, wincing at the pain as it crept back into her awareness. She laid a hand over it, hovering just above the skin, and reached out with the Force. She could feel the sliver of metal lodged in her arm, grating painfully against the bone.
"I'm fine," she murmured to Shepard. "It's shallow. It'll only take a second to heal."
She took a quick, calming breath. Now she wasn't standing in the middle of a battleground she managed to draw on the Force smoothly, patiently, feeling no need to resort to the raw power of the dark side. It was simple to grasp the metal splinter and pull it from her arm, then heal the wound completely.
When she looked up, she found Miranda had abandoned all pretence of being uninterested. The taller woman hurried over, peering at the smooth, newly-knitted skin with a clinical sort of interest. "Remarkable," she murmured. "Is this something you can do on command?"
Revan suppressed a spike of annoyance. On command? Yeah, Miranda definitely reminded her of Bastila. "Not as easily as other things," she replied, making an effort to keep the irritation from her voice. "It takes a significant amount of focus and a lot of energy."
"You seemed calmer when you did it, compared to when you were fighting," Shepard commented. She too seemed interested, warily so, but not inclined to be quite as pushy as the Cerberus operative.
Revan grimaced. She wasn't particularly keen on trying to explain the light side and the dark side to these people. She would have to at some point, after that little outburst when she had thought Shepard was considering murdering Cathka in cold blood, but now wasn't the time. "I… enjoy a good fight," she said briefly, instead.
Shepard nodded slowly, seeming to get the message that she didn't want to go into it any further. "Can you heal others, or just yourself?" she asked.
Revan pulled her arm firmly away from Miranda's scrutiny, adjusting her sleeve so the tear was barely visible. Miranda stepped away reluctantly. "I can heal anyone, but only minor injuries. Anything beyond a flesh wound or a cleanly broken bone will need kolto—or whatever you use for medical care on the battlefield in this galaxy."
"Is that a limitation of the Force?" Shepard asked.
Revan felt her lip quirk at that. "No, I'm just not very good at it," she replied.
Shepard paused for a moment, then her lips flickered in a smile of their own. "Oh. Right." She glanced over at Garrus, whose mandibles fluttered slightly. Revan wasn't sure what that meant, but Shepard seemed to take it as a prompt to action. "Well, looks like we're done here. Let's get out of here before the scavengers arrive." She tapped a point just behind her ear. "Joker, send the shuttle to my coordinates. Four to pick up."
She glanced over at Revan, and as if sensing her confusion, gestured toward her ear. "In-ear comm," she explained. "They're simple enough to implant. We'll have to get you one if you're going to be part of my ground team."
Revan nodded, smiling in grim satisfaction. She was mildly surprised at the feeling.
The test of Shepard's abilities, and qualifications as a leader, had gone well. So far. It had been a short mission, but the commander was calm, experienced and a quick-thinker – all qualities of a good leader.
It appeared Shepard's test of her had also gone well. Revan had known it was happening, of course – it was a necessary evil – but she hadn't expected to be feeling what she was feeling now.
She was pleased. She was glad to have impressed this woman from another galaxy. Somehow, she had already developed enough respect for Commander Shepard to want it to be mutual.
Interesting.